It all seems inevitable with the high end mags. You can no longer expect a three year subsciption to be fulfilled because either they go under, downsize, or change in such a way that you really have nothing to read about. Home theater has been a big culprit of the demise in a sense that people have to spend the same amount on 5 or 6 speakers as we use to spend on two thus our 2 channel mags become Stereo Review at best and even that couldn't survive. If Ultimate Audio merged with Stereophile and TAS we would have a great mag once again. Dealers and companies cannot afford to advertise in several mags and hang on. We thus have less advertising or they go off to the HT mags for more exposure and we find Denon and Sony as the mainstays of our mags instead of some of the higher end companies.
TAS new look-the end is near?
Picked up the latest copy of The Absolute Sound a couple of days ago and something just aint right. First I noticed the cover has changed. Gone is the dignified layout- White boardered in a contrasing color. Changed is the subtitle from "The High End Journal of Audio and Music" to "Stereo - Multichannel Audio - Music" ! Flipping through I find bold red printed highlighted quotes between paragraphs in some of the reviews. Then I came accross pages 18-19. FUTURE TAS big orange letters, pictures and arrows and captions and it hit me. Stereo Review! Audio! But not TAS! Even the paper stock seems cheaper. I remember when the cool little "underground" mag grew to full size. Oh well at least the print and pics were bigger. But now the "journal" looks like any mag, no character. Shorter reviews, less critical comment, more watered down praise. Now this! What happened to this sharp edged journal? Does this distub anyone else? PS- if the must change their look they should check out HI-FI+ (GB).